Dragon Age Origins Vignette 2: The Landsmeet
by maplemooh
Summary: Second in a series of Vignettes from my play through of Dragon Age Origins. Mahariel reacts to the consequences of her choices at the Landsmeet.


The daughter of Mahariel stood with her comrades. They all waited anxiously after the Landsmeet. After her decision in front of the assembly, they had traveled back to Eamon's estate, where the Arl and Alistair had been talking in private for quite some time. The fire in the guest room was warm, but the Warden didn't feel it. The pit of her stomach was a ball; her friends chatted around her, but she was lost in her own thoughts and worries.

She turned when she heard the door open; they all did. As expected, Alistair strode in. She stepped forward toward him, the twist in her gut sharpening. Normally, all her worries melted away when she saw Alistair's face, his eyes, his voice, his smell. Not this time. He wore a grim expression, and it made the elven woman uneasy.

"We…need to talk," Alistair started.

Her mouth had gone dry, and her heart began to race. She could hear his racing too. Sweat glistened on his brow; this was not good. Not good at all.

"I don't really question why you did what you did. I didn't want to become king, and you knew that, but it had to be," his voice was evened, "But, being king, that raises some questions about us. About you and me." His voice fell.

"I…thought you were in love with me," she said carefully, watching his face. Her stomach churned.

"I am," he answered, "But this is all I can think about since the Landsmeet." He held her eyes in his, not breaking his gaze, "First, there's the fact that both you and I are Grey Wardens. It's not a question of obligation, but of blood. You know that Grey Wardens don't usually live to become old, right?"

"We don't have to grow old together, do we?" she asked, her voice soft. She knew where this was going, and she felt powerless to stop it. She focused on Alistair, but the room around her began to spin slowly, blurring around them.

"Maybe not," he said sadly, "But that's not in the cards, anyhow." He took a breath, and continued on, his voice measuring out again, "As king, I'll be required to have a child. Even more so because my death is assured. That's assuming that someone with the taint can or even should have a child." His tone wavered with that last sentence.

"Don't Grey Wardens have children?" She'd never asked this question before. She'd never even thought about it.

"Not with each other. Even one parent having tainted blood means having children is not recommended. All the Grey Wardens I knew had children before they joined the Order," Alistair said gently. "I will need to find a wife, one who can bear a child. Who will live to raise it."

Each word was a stab in her heart.

"I don't relish it, but…I will have a duty as the king," his voice turned tender, "I love you. More than I ever thought possible but," he paused. His face was pained, his voice low with sadness, "I have to face what this means. I can't run away from it anymore."

"Are you saying we can't be together?" Her voice was tight; she couldn't breathe.

"Yes, I…I guess I am."

She felt the daggers slice her heart into small pieces. The blur of the room increased as her vision swam. She closed her eyes, hoping for it to slow down.

He continued, "I could see it becoming very hard to tear myself away from you. Impossible even. If this is what just be then…then I have to do it now. I'm sorry."

"Is this revenge for making you king?" A trickle of anger started in her voice, which was barely above a whisper.

"No, of course not. I said I understand why you decided what you did, and I do. But at the same time I cannot avoid what that entails."

She furrowed her brow, "Then why do this now? Why not wait to see what happens?" Wasn't that what he said at camp, that they didn't know what was going to come next? That they could be dead at the end of this?

"If I don't end it now, I fear I will never be able to. I'm sorry but…I have no choice."

Morrigan's words rang in her head – there was always a choice!

"So what happens now? Are you leaving?" Maybe the stupid shem had to go start finding a stupid shem wife already. The floodgates to her anger had opened.

"No. We still have our duty as Grey Wardens to fulfill. That hasn't changed."

Our duty? More like her duty, now. Nobody would let the new king-to-be go into serious battle. Why was it always her?

Her voice was softer now, "So this is it. It's over."

"I think it is best. For both our sakes."

She struggled to maintain the measure in her voice as she seethed, "I won't accept this, Alistair."

"I'm sorry you feel that way. My duty isn't going to stop being important to me. I can't change who I am. I…I wish I could. I really do."

Her hands bunched into fists. She changed who she was! A year ago she was just some random Dalish hunter in the forest, and now she was deciding the future ruler of Fereldan.

"I…need to go back to the camp. Be by myself for a while." He didn't skip a beat, though he broke eye contact, looking over his shoulder. "Arl Eamon has left for Redcliffe. He says the army has gathered there and is almost ready to march. As soon as we're ready, we should head to Redcliffe ourselves." He paused, then continued in a sigh, turning back to her. "The Blight awaits right?"

As Alistair turned away from her, she called out, "Alistair, please-"

He closed his eyes and swallowed, taking the step. He couldn't. Not now. He kept walking as she called again, her voice more desperate. He was almost at the door when he heard words that she had never uttered before.

"Maker, Alistair, turn around!"

Not once in all their time together, and they had rarely been apart, had he ever heard her refer to the Maker before. Her cavalier attitude towards, or outright disbelief in the Maker had never bothered him, but hearing her say that word gave him pause and his curiosity got the better of him. He turned, "What did you-"

His sentence was cut short as a sharp pain radiated through his face, and he'd been so unaware of the impending attack that he was knocked off balance, his platemail clattering loudly as he stumbled backwards, tripped, and hit the floor.

The Dalish woman had sucker-punched him in the nose.

He gingerly touched the middle of his face, wincing at the pain and hardly registered the wet sensation from the blood that gushed from his nose, coating his lips and chin. He stared at his hand a moment as he pulled it away from his face, somewhat dumbfounded. All he could do was look up in confusion at the woman he loved, who was towering over him, hands in fists and shaking with anger.

Her lips, the lips he had once kissed with such tenderness, were pulled back over her teeth in a sneer. Her eyes, her vivid blue eyes that reminded him of the summer sky, were crinkled in her rage, eyebrows furrowed together. Her vallaslin – her facial tattoos – were twisted and distorted. Her nose, which he always thought was adorable, was flared as she breathed. The light from the torches danced on her face, making it even more menacing. He'd never seen her as such, not even through all the pain and rage they had experienced together. This was something else entirely.

Her voice was little more than a hiss when she spoke, "_Dirthara-ma_, shem!"

Then she spat on the floor, and with her usual roguish grace, sidestepped around him and disappeared down the short hallway. As she turned the corner to the atrium, she could barely hear Alistair saying in disbelief that she'd broken his nose. Her long, pointed ears gave her the satisfaction of that, for what little she felt they were worth at the moment. She was desperate for a shadow to disappear into.

Finally, she came upon a large swath of darkness, and let it swallow her up. Here she could hide, cover her pain, and she finally cradled her throbbing fist. Her face cracked as mentally she compared the hardness of Alistair's face to a wall. She leaned her back against the stone, looking up and blinking her eyes to try and keep the tears at bay.

She'd given everything to him. She had let herself trust him completely, and been fooled into thinking he saw through her, through her elvish ears and through her vallaslin and saw her who she was. She had thought him so different than the humans she had been told of as a child, and as a young adult, growing up in the Sabrae caravan. She used to kill shems who wandered too close to their camp for fun. She slammed her fist against the wall, her face cracking just a little more as she thought about the hardness of humans.

She'd let herself love a human.

How could she?

She had to move. Every instinct in her body told her to run, to run from this human place, to run far away. Every nerve crackled with electricity and stood on end, and without thinking, she began to move in the shadows. She slipped silently past the servants, past the guards, past the maids. She had to be outside, away from all this. Her lungs felt like they were collapsing and she just couldn't breathe in the hallways, and her senses were becoming overwhelmed with the stench of human with every shallow breath she was able to pull in.

She could barely hear over the sound of her heart and her lungs – was someone calling for her? Foot steps? She couldn't tell, but she couldn't be concerned with it, not now, she had to go.

Her salvation came by the way of a corridor in the dining room, the one attached to the kitchens and larder. She slipped past the scullery maidens, down the darker hallways towards the fresh air she could smell through the stink. There was an exit here, she just had to find it.

The door from the kitchens to the outside of the estate was already cracked open, and it was easy enough for a rogue of her stature to slip out unnoticed. The shadows were long and drawn here, due to the evening sun and she moved with ease between them, blending into the scenery. She concentrated on getting out, for if she did much else she would be devoured by her emotion and grief.

She had to move away from the front gates –that's how he would leave and she couldn't bear to see him right now. The walls surrounding the estate, however, had just enough sloppily hewn stones to provide hand and foot grips to a desperate elf. She climbed, every fibre screaming at her, either from her ascension toward the roof or from her want to escape. Her fingers scrabbled against the rock, the rough surface cutting in to the fleshy pads. With a final pull, she pulled herself up through the crenels of the battlement, and rolled on to the stone of the floor, sucking in the cool air as she lay on her back. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Her head was swimming with memories earlier in the day from the Landsmeet, from the things Arl Eamon had said, things Anora had said, Alistair's expressions, and the emotions pumping through her veins, burning like poison.

She'd been another pawn in their game. Just one more thing for the humans to manipulate for their own wants and needs.

Not yet. She wasn't safe yet.

She rolled, running across the battlements until she was on the other side of the estate. She swung, a bit too early, to begin her climb down to the heart of the Market District. She winced as she scrabbled for a grip, and the stone bit her fingers viciously, her sore hand particularly screaming in pain as a fingernail tore off. She lost her grip and footing half way down and fell to the dirt below. She was still in shadow, nobody had noticed the 'whump' of her body hitting the ground, nobody heard her moan of pain, nobody saw her pick herself up and start to move again, albeit cradling her sore hand – now arm, really, or saw her limp as she asked unwilling muscles to do her bidding.

A few minutes later, she found herself checking over her shoulders before entering the warehouse. She listened to the inside – no sounds of feet, breathing or heartbeats. She slipped into the darkened space, and found the knot on the wall to let her in to the Grey Warden cache.

She stood for a moment, her elven eyes adjusting quickly to the low light. Her breathing, which was practically a pant, was starting to even. Her body reminded her, via pain, that it had been injured. Her finger dripped with blood. And as she was able to relax, as her instincts told her she was safer here than in the stone of the estate, everything rushed back.

Her hands found her face, which was cracking underneath her roughened palms and bleeding fingers. She wanted to hold it back, hold it in, but she could no longer. A short cry escaped her lips as the tears began to flow, and her breathing became irregular as she sobbed alone, sinking to the floor in a long-forgotten warehouse in a city that was so foreign to her.

She sobbed through her memories: of when she first met him, that day in Ostagar. It felt like a lifetime ago, where she stood in front of this golden haired shem with eyes the colour of autumn leaves. She had immediately liked his wit and sense of humour, and appreciated that he answered so many of her questions dutifully, and never made her feel foolish. He'd disarmed her suspicions almost immediately, with his generally sarcastic commentary, and his devotion to his cause, and to his leaders.

How happy he'd been when she walked, though a bit shakily, out of Flemeth's hut. He'd been staring out over the pond, standing by some rushes. She could see the worry lines etched on his face. The relief in his voice when he spoke to her, and the pain and loss he expressed so soon after. He'd seemed so genuinely pleased that she was there.

The comfort he had brought after her first dream about the archdemon, and for all the gentle wakings that he did after that. She remembered the terror of those early dreams, that she would thrash violently in her sleep, and he would often come to wake her from them. She was always disoriented, slick with sweat, tangled and bound in her sleeping furs; she'd lashed out at him more than once in her terror. The terror waned when they had started to share a tent at night, mostly her slipping into his in the cover of darkness. She had felt so much more secure in his arms, and while the dreams didn't recede, she was no longer as frightened.

It brought her to their first kiss, and their first night together. He'd asked her if she would miss the path they were on after the Blight was over, and then used the time to admit how much he'd cared for her. Even then, she'd still been wary, and had even said she was unsure that she could feel for a human the way he felt for her. That had melted away when he had leaned in closer, voice tender, and pressed his lips against hers. She'd forgotten herself, entranced by this shem, and had wrapped her arms between his armour, around his neck, and pressed into him.

'Maker's breath, but you're beautiful.'

She could still hear his voice, and every inflection. It tore at her.

All the stolen kisses on the road, when they were hiding their affections from the rest of the party. How she'd unconsciously began to sit closer to him as they were eating at camp. How he stood closer to her when they were investigating the various issues they'd needed to solve. The times they ignored their watch duties to go and kiss and touch each other in the forest, or when they went herb-gathering for Morrigan, taking plenty of breaks to explore each other's mouths, and each other's bodies with their hands.

Her body heaved and choked as she wept, but the chill in the air could not touch the flush of emotion in her cheeks. That she had been so very foolish, to believe that a human would continue to be with her when it became inconvenient. That is what she was after her role was done at the Landsmeet, to those nobles, to Arl Eamon: an inconvenient detail to move aside so they could continue to play at their shem politics.

It had been so different before, when they were on the road, when it was just their group; a mix of such odd bedfellows, all coming together to fight the Blight. She remembered how nervous Alistair was, that one particular night, when he asked to spend the night in her tent. How he couldn't imagine being without her. She'd been so afraid then, and so painfully aware of her heritage, and here was this shem, who was seeing through her, seeing her ears and her tattoos and her stature and loving her, not because of or in spite of. He _saw_ her.

That he hoped she could love him, a human.

She'd called him _Vhenan_, her heart. _Ar lath ma, vhenan_ – I love you, my heart – had slipped from her lips more than once, to his great delight. How many times had she spoken elvish to him, and he smiled?

She curled up on the hard floor of the warehouse, snuffling and choking as she wept. Her body had split open so easily for him. Everything about him had overwhelmed her instinct, the shape of his face, his autumn eyes, the softness of his mouth, and the tightness of his grip. She had let herself drown in him, so foolishly, forgetting everything she had learned from her elders. She had come back, again and again, to the comfort of his arms, his body, and his scent – that intoxicating scent had overpowered her body where she would have done anything he asked. Their bodies moved together so well, on the battlefield and off.

He'd held her close the last time she had wept, after she had to grant her oldest friend a merciful death. She was certain the archdemon had sent Tamlen on purpose, to wrench her heart and demoralize her spirit. It had almost worked. Instead she found strength in Alistair, and she provided comfort to him when his family reunion did not go as planned when they arrived in Denerim.

Now she felt drained. It was like when she first lost Tamlen, back when they couldn't find him. The pit in her stomach this time felt so much more vast, and her hope had been extinguished instead of keeping a glimmer. Through all the horrors she had witnessed, this one felt the most personal, and she felt like she had lost everything that kept her tethered to her own sanity.

She could survive losing Tamlen.

She choked on her own stupidity. For believing that she, an elf, could be more to a human than another human. By her very birth, she could be no better than what she was. If she wasn't a Warden, none of her words would have any power; she would just be another elf to be abused. She'd had no business playing in shem politics, and asking her to understand had been so terribly, terribly unfair.

And though she couldn't bear to say the words, much less to him, but she knew if she had declared Anora the queen, that she would have made sure that Alistair would be executed. It had happened in Orzammar; immediately after the crowning, the new king sentenced his opponent to death, a move that had shocked her to her core. It was not the way the Dalish did things. She would not expect the humans to be much different.

In saving his life, she lost hers.

As she breathed, trying to stop the shivers and the sobs, her slender ears picked up something in the warehouse. She held her breath for a moment, listening – She could tell by the breathing it was one entity, but many footfalls – an animal? The feet were heavy, it was a large animal…what could it be? Was it looking for her?

She propped herself up on an elbow. She was still close to the secret entrance, and she heard the quiet 'wuffing' as the animal sniffed the air spilling out from under the door, and the clicking of its toenails on the stone floor. There was a 'whump' as it sat, then it whined.

Her mabari had found her.

Nobody else was with the dog, as far as she could tell. She slid the secret door open, ushering the animal inside, closing it directly after. The animal walked inside, whining softly at her, nudging its big, wet nose under her arms. She wrapped herself around the dog; fur so soft her on her cheeks, hugging tightly to something that still loved her, no matter what. She needed that.

She didn't know how long she spent in the warehouse that evening, sobbing into her mabari's fur, coming to her decisions. She thought often of what brought Zevran to Fereldan, and what Morrigan had said to her so early on in their time together. She had to figure out what had meaning, and who had meaning, and how to move forward in a life now that seemed so empty and devoid.

Survival had meaning. There was a Blight to stop. Fereldan needed a king. It was up to her to ensure those things happened, as it had been throughout this adventure.

It was always up to her.

She was ready to go.

As she drew her broken body back to standing, smearing blood on her face as she rubbed her soaking cheeks and wiped her runny nose, she had become the Hero of Fereldan. She just didn't know it yet.

Dog at her side, she hobbled back to the estate.


End file.
